


Boys of Summer

by hamish_adler_holmes



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cas is ace, Cas' dad is a dick, Homophobic Language, M/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 01:40:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2754860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamish_adler_holmes/pseuds/hamish_adler_holmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Cas are about to enter their senior year.  They've got this last summer ahead of them and they're ready to spend it with their newfound love but the next day, Cas is gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boys of Summer

**Author's Note:**

> There is a bit of violence and homophobic language in this fic.

One day Cas and Dean are sitting on the Winchester’s front porch, laughing and drinking soda from cold bottles, talking about their plans for the summer.  This is their last one, since they’ll be starting senior year.  The summer after that will be filled with graduations parties and bad food, and preparing for college.

Cas and Dean applied to all the same places, and got into the same ones.  They went on all the tours together, chose what building they wanted to live in.  Signed the “Class of 2001” poster.  They signed an agreement to room together, and they’re taking nearly the same classes.  They’re going to drive up there together, and Dean already has dibs on the bed farthest from the door.  Cas already claimed the closet by the sink, insisting that it’s bigger.

The next morning, Cas is gone.

Dean calls, he walks across the street and bangs on the door, each day for a week, but when his mother tells him about the moving trucks at midnight that first day, he goes and locks himself in his room.  He takes down the picture of Cas from his wall, tucking it into the bottom drawer of his desk.  He deletes all his emails and chat logs, and he puts all the clothes he borrowed into a box and stores it in the back of his closet.

He starts senior year alone, and bitter.  His grades stay perfect, he makes friends, he plays on the school football team, dates the head cheerleader (and feels nothing for her).  Not once do a pair of bright blue eyes flash through his dreams.  He stops missing the familiar touch, warm fingers twisted with his own, a smiling mouth under his.  He forgets the laughing, the soda bottles and books and sweaters and late nights, he forgets the first few days of awkward love and laughing and smiling.

He forgets Castiel Milton.

Until one day, twenty years on, when he goes to some lecture that’s bound to put him to sleep, by the esteemed writer, Jimmy Novak.  He herds his history class in through the gym doors, shushing them and finding the rest of the teachers in the bottom row of the bleachers and they joke, anticipating the coming break as much—if not more—than the students are.

Then he looks up and sees a flash of dark hair, bright blue eyes glowing from across the damn gymnasium, with dark circles and a fake smile.  A face he had tried so hard to wipe from his memory and suddenly all these things are flooding back, feeling the stolen kisses and warm hands like phantom pains on his body.  Castiel, his Cas, is standing there, and he doesn’t even see Dean.

Dean stands and turns, leaving the gym without a word.  Nobody says anything.  Cas follows the figure with his eyes and something in him snaps, he sees the familiar slope of shoulders and the bowlegs he used to tease.  He staggers through his speech and earns himself a few laughs from students, none intentional.  Afterwards, he finds the principal and demands to know where Mr. Winchester went.

He finds him an hour later, sitting alone in a dark classroom, his head in his hands.

“Dean.”

Dean doesn’t turn, doesn’t respond.  Cas steps closer and Dean moves so fast it’s like an animal, and he’s got Cas pinned to the wall.  He’s got tears in his eyes and he’s gritting his teeth and he looks like he could rip Cas’ head from his shoulders if he says one thing wrong.

“Where the hell did you go?”

“Dean—”

“You left me.  You left me and you said nothing, no warning.  I went to your house for _weeks,_ I knocked on the door til my knuckles bled and the neighbors all looked at me like I was insane, and you never fucking told me why.”

Cas is breathless, no words coming.  Emotions are so clear on Dean’s face, anger and pain and twenty years of being so confused.  Cas opens his mouth to apologize and instead, the whole story spills out.

How he went home that night and his father came in drunk, throwing bottles and books at Cas’ head and telling him _‘No way was he having a fag son in his house, no boy-fucking creature of sin’._

Cas thinks this is a good time to try and reason with him, _‘Dad first of all, I’m asexual, and second of all, I’m not doing anything.’_ Which, to nobody’s surprise, isn’t the best tactic.

Then comes the yelling, the accusations and the proof, he saw them togetherand then there was the knife and Cas felt it slice through his stomach, across his back and his arms, he felt his blood all over his body, heard his sister screaming and his mother shouting.  Heard the police and then everything was a blur of tubes and needles and therapists.  And moving, changing addresses and names more than he changed his hair. 

The pain of missing Dean, so much worse than the scars on his body.  All those years having to pretend he was someone he wasn’t, changing his name.  Wanting to reach out to Dean but being afraid of what would happen.  Of never loving anyone like he loved Dean.

And Dean finally notices the edges of scars peeking out from under Cas’ collar and he can’t believe that any of this is real, that his Cas is there in front of him, broken and scarred and changed.

Dean releases him and he slides down the wall, thumping onto his knees and he leans forward, almost like he’s praying, asking Dean to forgive him.

Dean is there again, grabbing Cas’ arms and dragging him to his feet.  Leading him down a long hall and to his car, taking him home.  When they get there Cas stands in the middle of the living room, not knowing what to say or do.  Then Dean pushes Cas’ shirt from his shoulders and his fingers are running over Cas’ scars, and he’s whispering apologies like a chant.

Cas turns and Dean meets him there, mouth hot and insistent and so good after so long, and Cas nearly falls to his knees again.  Dean is holding him up, muttering praise and apologies and love against his neck, mouthing at the scars there and Cas feels whole again, for the first time in twenty years.

One day, a year later, Dean takes Cas’ hand and smiles, telling him to close his eyes.  He does as he’s told, and when Dean finally lets him open them they’re standing in that little high school gymnasium and Dean’s students are all holding a big banner and Cas can hardly believe his eyes and he can hardly breathe as Dean drops down onto one knee.

“I waited long enough, Cas.  Don’t make me wait any longer.”

Cas falls to his knees, not in a prayer of forgiveness this time but in love and he leans forward, crashing their lips together and repeating the words ‘ _Yes, I love you, yes, yes.’_ like they’re the only word he needs, like they’re the air he breathes.  Like he didn’t wait twenty years to say it, like there was never a gap between that morning of them sitting and drinking soda from cold bottles, talking about their plans for summer.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [Tumblr](http://angelicgays.co.vu) or [Twitter](http://twitter.com/sirentrash)


End file.
